Alleged Mexican drugs cartel members extradited to US

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, aka La Barbie, who is to be extradited to the US to face drugs chargesGetty Images

Mexico has extradited 13 alleged drugs gang members to the US. They include a man accused of killing a US customs enforcement agent in Mexico in 2011, and three people accused of the murder of a US consulate official and her husband.

Among those arrested are alleged gang leaders Edgar Valdez Villarreal, also known as La Barbie, who is accused of being a lieutenant in a faction of the Beltran Leyva cartel, and Jorge Costilla Sanchez, popularly known as El Cos, an alleged former leader of the Gulf cartel, and Los Zetas, said federal prosecutor Tomas Zeron, as quoted by Associated Press (AP).

Zeron said that the group also includes Jose Emanuel Garcia Sota, who is charged with the killing of ICE agent Jaime Zapata in 2011.

Valdez, who was arrested in 2010, faces drugs trafficking charges in Texas, Louisiana and Georgia. Costilla, who was arrested in 2012, is wanted in Texas on drug smuggling charges, and with threatening federal law enforcement agents.

Valdez, who earned his nickname from his fair complexion and green eyes, is a US-born former high school football player in Texas, who graduated from being a street dealer to becoming a cartel assassin.

Luis Umberto Hernandez Celis, Alberto Nunez Payan and Ricardo Valles de la Rosa, suspects in the 2010 murder of a US Consulate employee, her spouse, and the husband of another consulate employee in Ciudad Juarez, are also among the group.

The move comes after an agreement in June between US Attorney General Loretta Lynch and her Mexican counterpart Arely Gomez in June to increase coordination in the battle against organised crime.

Some of the prisoners were housed in Altiplano, a maximum-security prison where drugs baron Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman recently staged a dramatic escape, in a humiliating blow to Mexican authorities, a Mexican official told AP. The US filed a request for Guzman to be extradited two weeks before his escape using a secret underground tunnel.